The Strong Mom Podcast

Turning Setbacks into Strength: Learning from Loss with Olympic Insight and Expert Advice

• Lauren Regula | Strong Mom • Episode 3

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Feeling the sting of disappointment can be a transformative force—if we let it. Join me as we navigate the emotional landscape of loss with the help of Olympic athletes and leading experts, learning to turn our most challenging moments into opportunities for growth. From the heartbreaking near-miss of an Olympic medal to the everyday letdowns life throws our way, we'll explore a five-step process that promises to reshape the way we view setbacks. I'll share my own brush with Olympic glory and how it taught me lessons that reach far beyond the podium.

The journey from defeat to acceptance is often fraught with self-doubt and criticism. Hear the stirring account of a 2004 Athens Olympic athlete as we dissect the psychological effects of public loss and the crucial steps toward healing. We'll discuss the importance of acknowledging pain, breaking free from self-criticism, and the transformative power of reframing our perspective. Our candid conversation aims to shift your focus from 'why' to 'what can I learn', unlocking a world where every failure is a lesson in disguise.

Lastly, we'll tackle the all-too-real challenges of seeking support. Whether you're a mother striving for personal achievement or someone balancing multiple roles, finding mentors who truly understand your journey is key. We'll talk about creating a supportive environment, how to pick the right people to ask for help, and how to keep striving for your goals no matter the obstacles. Let this episode be your guide to crafting a life where your dreams don't just live in your imagination but become your reality.

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Lauren:

I made one freaking pitch mean a lot of negative things about me. I wanted to just pretend it never happened. I felt like I let everyone down.

Dave:

You're either winning or you're learning. We asked for help quickly, quickly really fast.

Lauren:

Welcome to the Strong Mom podcast.

Dave:

I'm Lauren and I'm Dave Lauren's husband.

Lauren:

Not just a random co-host, and today we're going to be talking about an Olympians mentality, so Olympic mentality surrounding loss, and the loss I'm talking about today specifically is going for something and having it not work out the way you expected. I know if you're listening to this, you're probably driven in some capacity and when we're driven we make goals. And when we make goals, it's really easy to get off course and go backwards when we don't hit the goal that we've been working really hard for.

Dave:

So let's kick off. I think the first thing we're going to do is we're going to talk about a huge loss or a couple losses in your life, how you handled them. But we're going to talk about the mistakes that you made. Identify the mistakes, because I think a lot of people are going to be able to kind of relate I know I'll be able to relate because we still make mistakes, right and then, after each one, we're going to talk about the antidote for it, the way to reverse it, the way that you can move through it, the technique, because there's really a five step process that we've kind of honed it on, that we coach on and that our moms use. It's really simple, but it's really successful if you can put it into play.

Lauren:

Yeah, and as you are listening, what I want you to do is think about those situations in your life where things didn't work out as planned. And also one thing we talk about is we use this verbiage with our kids too. Our kids are going to have a lot of failure in their life, and if we can help them navigate that failure to be as much of a springboard as possible to bigger, better opportunities, then why not? Yeah?

Dave:

And if we throw five steps out and you can use two, great, amazing. And the thing is, like Lauren said, your kids are going to be able to latch on to at least a couple of these and they can reframe and remember. Loss is different For everyone. Right At the point that you lost the bronze medal at 27 years old no kids, that was your world, right, yeah, when our kids are 10 and they lose a tournament game, to them that's huge, yeah, right. And as a mom, it might be, you know, not having a great vacation. You know you build or holidays, right, you build Christmas up to be the world and then it doesn't work out for you.

Lauren:

Devastation yeah, absolutely. You can sit there and wallow away, because it didn't work out the way you expected.

Dave:

So All right. So let's do it. Let's cut to your loss and, just as a descriptor, I want to know how it felt. Right, let's start off with the Olympics. Beijing Olympics Tell me what it was like to work really your whole life, specifically a four year Olympics. I go up into the point where you were in your dream scenario. You were pitching with a chance to win a bronze medal, the first one as a female sports team from your country.

Lauren:

Yeah, yeah. So not only would it have been historic for softball Canada, because that would have been our first medal, but team Canada in general had never meddled in a women's team sport until that point. So there was a lot riding on that particular game and I just want to set the stage quickly. Right, I played softball when I was little. I went to Oklahoma State on a scholarship. I was a softball player. I went and played professionally. I was a softball player. I went to 2004 games and Athens. I was a softball player. I was Lauren the softball player.

Lauren:

I eat, I breathed Is that the right word? Um, I slept. Everything I did, all we talked about was softball and our off time we would go play catch Um it, our whole life revolved around my softball schedule. So I took my entire life to this one moment and I was pitching and we were playing Australia and just reality is I gave up the game, losing game, losing a home run, to lose that elusive bronze medal, and I was debit. I mean, that was my first. I had a lot of losses in softball. I had a lot of losses as an athlete, but that when I think of you know it feels more like a life loss.

Lauren:

That was yeah, everything I worked, everything I worked towards knowing that softball was out of the Olympics in 2012 and we wanted a family, so I knew I was going to be done anyways, I knew there was no chance to work, to get better, to, to have that you know opportunity again. So I was shattered. I mean, everything I worked for my entire life was gone like poof in a moment. And on top of it, it wasn't like I made a goal to myself and said, hey, I really want to hit this goal, but if I don't, no one knows. Nope In front of the world, for everyone to see your teammates.

Lauren:

Everyone. Yeah, I felt like I let everyone down. I felt like I left my teammates down, my country down. I feel like I let softball, I let the sport, like all of it, everything I trained for. I felt like I could have been better in that moment and I I wasn't.

Dave:

Let's cover. That's pretty. I mean, it feels pretty heavy to hear you say that I didn't hear you say you let me down.

Lauren:

I just wanted to make a note there. Did I not put fam, my family, of course? Okay, just wanted to acknowledge as a mom watching on my own, like I tell you, all the time, watching my own kids play, I'm like I can't imagine what it was horrible, it was rough.

Dave:

The good part is you skipped the closing ceremonies. Yes, yes so just to wrap it up.

Lauren:

I, I, I. As soon as that happened and we ended up losing and those you know that you know encompassing, or how should I say it I felt like very heavy. Um, I just totally detached and almost mistake number one. Yeah, I like detached from it, I like pretended it didn't happen.

Dave:

The unhealthy reaction, very normal reaction, but not super healthy. You buried it.

Lauren:

Oh, big time Like it didn't happen.

Dave:

Like I didn't deep down, yeah.

Lauren:

Because not only was I heartbroken, but I was. I was embarrassed, I didn't want to talk about it.

Dave:

This could work in any. I'm just thinking of other places in our life that this could happen. Um, if we have, let's say, a meaningful conversation, I'm excited to tell you about something and you don't react the way I expect. I am embarrassed about you. Know, telling you I'm excited about something, or not getting the reaction that I want. I might not bring it up again.

Lauren:

Yeah, you bury it.

Dave:

Right, I think I know I know you do this. It's not a female male trait, I think human trait human trait. I think there are people that think it could be male, female, but bringing it's like bringing the thing up from three weeks ago or three months ago. That's been bothering you.

Lauren:

Yeah, right, yeah it comes back to.

Dave:

But you can't bury it. You put your glove away. We played catch every day for however many a couple of years at least, yeah, and then I didn't see your glove.

Lauren:

Yeah, no, it was just a part of me, yeah.

Dave:

It was for like eight years.

Lauren:

Yeah, I pretended wasn't part of me anymore.

Dave:

Yes, well, that's some of the danger of your identity being the thing, yep, but so burying it is obviously not the right thing. So what? What's the what's the opposite of that? What do you do now to get through that?

Lauren:

Well, I own it. I own what happened, I acknowledge what happened. I talk about like I. In order to acknowledge it first, I have to acknowledge it to myself.

Dave:

Right, I think, even with I think that's the very first thing.

Lauren:

Yeah, I think, with with this particular loss, like I wanted to just pretend it never happened. It's like denying reality and so just accepting reality, I think acceptance and saying it to myself number one. And then I think saying it to someone else. I know, you know we're not going to get into any deep things today in terms of depression, but it's just like when I said something to my therapist. It's like when I said it out loud, I like, oh gosh, that felt so good. I didn't have to hold it in, but the very first thing was just just accepting it. It was what it was.

Dave:

I think that's the well. It's obvious to me that's the first domino, that's the most important step is getting real with it. Because if you don't know where you're starting, you talk about this in the program all the time. If you don't know that initial feeling and starting point to work from and you're saying it's not a problem to yourself, then there's nothing, nothing to work on, there's nothing to fix, there's nothing to get better from. Yeah Right, there's nothing to learn.

Lauren:

Nope, so bearing it, acknowledging it, yeah, so step one is get dead ass on us.

Dave:

Honest. It acknowledged the fact that you've been hurt, that you have loss and that you want to get better.

Lauren:

So number two Wait, can I just say? This yes, sometimes the hardest part like one of the things that we do right clarity is in the very beginning of what we, when we work with moms, because it's very uncomfortable, Like sometimes it sucks, to say I fucked up, but the reality is is we're gonna screw up and it's. I think it's so easy to deflect blame or give reasons as to why it happened and it just keeps us like feeling better about ourselves but really it actually makes us feel worse.

Dave:

Anyways, I just wanted to say it's interesting that we tell our kids to say you're sorry. Yeah, how quickly we're all you're on your kid as soon as he, you know, wrongs the other kid Right Did you say you're sorry, but as adults I think we lose that. I think we beat ourselves up.

Lauren:

Yeah, we beat ourselves up about it. So, anyways, it's not easy, but it is 100% necessary. Okay, so step one be honest, dead honest dead, dead honest.

Dave:

And the other thing I just want to touch on. It doesn't have to be a huge loss, like you said, right, A lot of times it is. It is something smaller. It's just saying, like you said, my bad.

Lauren:

Yeah, my yeah.

Dave:

All right. The second big mistake that we see and that you made you focus really, really closely and nitpicked your behavior and your actions.

Lauren:

Yeah, so I did not speak much after that game about softball in general, ever again, and for years years didn't watch it, like literally was just trying to.

Lauren:

Just I was removing myself from that whole part of my life which was my life. But I, when I did think about it and my mind would go and I'm sure a lot of people can relate you're not saying things out loud but your mind's going a thousand, you know minutes or miles a minute, but it would always be on the super negative and it would be super nitpicky on these like very particular moments or things and what I wish I would have done differently. It was just a negative thought loop. That was the only what I thought about it. The only thing I thought about was the negative, the negative stuff. I never, ever, thought about the entire journey, when I did think about more than just the one Olympic game. I would constantly think about the negative, still just super hyper focused on really.

Dave:

And when you do that, you miss out on the fact that that's a portion of your life.

Lauren:

That was a moment moment, the you know on the other side. Just, I've learned to zoom out right. It's so easy in the moment to think about all of the like nitpicky, little, gritty details. But really, if I remove myself from the situation and looked from what we call birds eye view, right Like the 30,000 foot view, it wasn't about that one moment. But I made it about that one moment and I made it mean. I made one freaking pitch mean that I wasn't very good at what I did, that I write that I wasn't a very good pitcher or softball player. I made it mean that I let my team, my family, my country down. I made it. I made one freaking pitch mean a lot of negative things about me. A lot of negative things, it's dangerous.

Dave:

It's like walking. It's like if you picked out the dirtiest spot in your house, right, your closet. You don't clean your closet very often and you hyper focus on your closet and then someone asks you to how's your house? It's a disaster. It's so messy when the rest of your house is clean, but your only focus on that dirty closet. That's all you're going to think about. Right, it's going to overtake and you're going to start to believe that your entire house is messy, which is which is dangerous. If you would just zoom out and be able to look around and say, oh wow, my kitchen's beautiful, my yard is mode, Everything, all these other things in my house and around my house look great. It pulls you out of that moment of negativity, I think but the but that's science shows right.

Lauren:

It takes something like seven positive things for one negative. We are just hardwired to see negative. So I think it's important to understand that that's what, what I was doing and what we do, what you do, what everybody does is immediately goes to the negative, because that's what we're hardwired to do. Right, we have to always be on the lookout for danger. But when you know, right now, I'm like oh, now I know what I'm doing here, I'm completely focusing on the negative. I need to start talking about and thinking about all the things that went right, or what are the things that helped me.

Dave:

So, number one, you're going to get honest and acknowledge that you're hurting or that there was a loss. Number two, you're going to zoom out. Number three there are going to be some questions that you're going to ask, right, and I think you asked, probably in a lot of people, the wrong questions or they're the wrong questions. They're not as productive for you, right, and this would be an example of why did this happen to me.

Lauren:

Why me? Why did this happen? Right, I spent a lot of time trying to understand a situation that didn't need an explanation. The situation was I played a game, I made a bad pitch, we lost the game. It was very simple. I still tried to understand, like, why did this happen to me? I've put all my whole life on the you know hold for all of this. We had gotten married the year before the games. I left for pretty much the whole training year and I had all of these, these reasons why it should have worked out for me, but it didn't, and not just for me, but for Canada. Right, like I'm thinking I had given everything to team Canada at that point. That team Canada was my life. I feel like I, you know, bled the maple leaf and that's how I felt, and I'm like I couldn't. I couldn't understand, like I was trying to justify it and I couldn't like, why did this happen to me? Again in a negative tone.

Dave:

All right. So what we love in the program and just in general in life, to reframe these questions right. So an example, give me an. Can you give me an example of the right question? Yeah, yeah.

Lauren:

So instead of thinking why you know why did this happen? I would think like okay, what did this do for me? What can I learn? There's there's always something to learn, because I think one of the biggest mistakes people make and I made at the time was I let this particular you know goal that I did not hit or loss, that I, that I had you know achievement that I really was aiming for, that just didn't work out. I let that be the end. And if I could just ask like well, what can I take from this? What went right? What can I learn? How can this make me better? Those are questions that I use now, even if it's not in softball like I think in that that's the one thing I love about sports is especially not in softball.

Lauren:

But that's what I mean. It doesn't matter, you could have a lot, if you're, if you're listening, and you had a goal to run a marathon in a certain time and you didn't do it. Or you had a goal to get a promotion. Or you had a goal to have the most amazing holiday season, with no stress and all the connection, and it turned out to be a shit show, with everyone crying and unhappy and you're like, uh, it's, it's okay. Okay, what can I do? You know, what can I do to set myself up for success, more success, maybe not perfect success, because that doesn't exist, but why? Why did this happen in a positive way?

Dave:

This happened for me instead of to me. Right, it takes, it pulls you out of that victim kind of seat. If you think about why did this happen? For me, it's interesting so successful people do this. I mean all over the place. I think a good example is um. We have a family member that's a former Navy SEAL. After every mission they debrief right, and it's they go over things that didn't work well, but they go over things that they could have done better, the things that did go well and what can I do better? Right, and they use it. You're either winning or you're learning, and I think that is essentially kind of what you're saying. This is amazing with kids, right In these moments of loss Okay, what did you learn for the next one?

Dave:

I think if you can just instill that like failing forward mentality, it pulls you again. It's it makes it easy to get out of the funk, out of the negative thought loop, cause I think that's anybody that's been in um in a series of losses or taken one on the chin, bad um. You get into the thought loop and I think that's the most dangerous one. It's the examples like when we, when we move back to start our business, I remember thinking like we're not going to be able to do this, and I couldn't get that loop out of my head. It was this is what's going to happen. Like I already know the future. This is what's going to happen. I'm going to keep doing this and we're going to get a bad result, and then it just replays and replays, and replays, and so anything you can use to get out of it is essential, and I think these are the questions what can I learn? Like these are the third step. What can I learn and how did this happen for me? Yeah, right.

Lauren:

And knowing that we are multi-dimensional. So there's something, regardless if I'm playing softball, if I'm, you know, creating a trying to make the great birthday party for one of our kids to be a huge success, right, we have these things built up, whether it's, you know, going for a certain deal at work or whatever. Whatever it is, we can take the lessons that we learned. But, again, you can only do that if you zoom out. So all of these do kind of play on top of each other. Got to zoom out.

Dave:

Got to zoom out. So we've got get on us, zoom out and then ask the right questions reframe. All right. The fourth piece, the predictive behavior. The good example and this is, I think, one of the biggest losses I mentioned it earlier for us was really our business and kind of our work when we own the gym. Covid came and anybody people's businesses were affected. Some people crushed at COVID, which is incredible.

Dave:

Some people were really stung, like our gym shut down for 10 to 12 weeks, something like that Literally essentially cut our income off, which isn't a great place to be, and it was as much. The question at the time was are people going to go back to gyms? Obviously that people are going back to gyms now, but at the time with a family and that's all Lauren I did. It was a little worrisome and that's when strong mom started and it worked out great.

Dave:

Here we are, but at the time I think you and I had differing kind of ways to approach it, and I think the real question is are you looking at it from a standpoint of possibility or probability? Yeah, and I think if you look at something as probable, you base it on your past history. Right, you try and and your brain does this naturally you try and make sense of the world. Right, you look into the future and you say, well, this is what I've done in the past, this is what's going to happen in the future, and I think that's super dangerous. Don't give me an example or speak to that.

Lauren:

Well, yeah, we tell moms that we work with all the time and people that we don't work with any time. We have the opportunity to say that you want to live in a world of of possibility. Um, I think so. When I think of living in the world of probability, things that have happened in the past as soon as you have a mistake or something happens, it's easy to again play those negative thought loops. This is going to happen, like you talked about, but I think in my particular case, because my identity was so tied up into being a softball player, at this particular moment I, I think I lost a little bit of my luster in terms of confidence, right, because I let that moment that I didn't do my, you know, do what I wanted to I won't say my best, I tried my best but it didn't work out I let that kind of over arch kind of play into the future of my life, when it actually had no, it had no connection whatsoever. The only connection that it had was that I made it.

Lauren:

I made a connection between my loss, right, like I came home from my second Olympics with my head down, like I, you know, I was like I said, I was embarrassed and I think I had a lot to be proud of. I had a lot to look up and be like oh man, look, if I could do that, look what I could do in the future. There's a world of possibilities out there. I literally came back and buried myself and put my head down and was ashamed. I literally let that moment kind of feed into how I was living my life forward. Now I'm not saying I was complete EOR, but I I I mean I'm not saying I was completely, just like you know, on top of the world and then all of a sudden, that one pitch, I I lost everything, but I it definitely gave me it, I got a hit, took a hit. Confidence wise yeah, I think the stories that we tell ourselves become the issue right, so you can be on top of the world.

Dave:

And then that moment happens and then all of a sudden, you start to tell yourself a story that you can't do it anymore. You lose your imagination, it's like it's been stolen, right? That's like I think kids and if we encourage them live from that possibility, right. When a kid's little, you can be president, you can do whatever you want, Right. And they start to believe that because of of that living from possibility, anything's possible, but as adults.

Dave:

somehow the world steals it From us. We suffer loss and we start to think well, this is what's happened in the past, this is what's going to happen in the future. Right, I don't, uh, I'm, you know, I haven't gotten the promotion at work. It's an easy example, my I'm looking to have a deeper conversation with my husband and he reacted poorly. Well, we start to expect, yes, losing yeah, which is dangerous, yeah.

Lauren:

I think it's important. And one thing I've taken from this particular concept of living in possibility is you know someone out there has done it, and if someone out there has done it, then it's, it's doable, and there's no correlation. And an easy way to think of it is someone said this to me once imagine you know someone going out and shooting a free throw and they miss the first one. If you live out of a life of probability, you just assume you're going to miss everyone for the rest of the game, and that's ridiculous. No one knows what the future is. The future is a story. It is.

Lauren:

If the future is a story, the past is a story. You can. You can interpret the past however you would like. Um, why not make it a great story? But we don't, we don't. We get so stuck in Well, it's probably not going to happen, cause it didn't happen last year. It's probably like then we create those behaviors that ensure that it's not going to happen and then we go see, told you it's maybe the most dangerous place to be right, and we talk. We talk to people.

Dave:

A good easy example is something around a weight loss.

Dave:

Yeah, right, cause we we meet so many moms who they need to lose 10 pounds, or 20, 30 pounds even, maybe and they haven't done it in the past or they've done it in the way it comes back on, right, and so when we meet them, they can't even there's no world that they can foresee where this works for them. Right, it's always walking, disappearing. Right, it's always walking disappointment and expecting, you know, a bad outcome. Yeah, and so one of the first things that we do in this program is you work on a health map. Right, the hardest and one of the most important things, right out of the gate, is design the future with imagination. It's not simple, but it has to be done.

Dave:

Yeah, it can't happen if you can't see it right.

Lauren:

The one thing that every parent can relate to is a vacation, and something that I try and drill into the moms heads, our moms that we work with is vacations don't plan themselves. They don't. They don't fall into your lap. When you think of a vacation with your family and you're trying to make it memorable and amazing, like your life very well could be, you have to start thinking about where do you want to go, and then you start going to these questions Do you want it to be warm? What time of year do you want it to be in? Do you want it to be? We live where it's cold, so do we want to get out of the cold in February, or do you live somewhere where it's always super hot? Like you have to ask yourself these questions and then, all of a sudden, you arrive to a destination. But there was a lot of thought that went into that. But then, guess what? Just because you say, hey, I really can't wait to go to Costa Rica with the family Now, now you got to get to work, now you have to research flights, research places to stay, all of a sudden you've done all that research. Then you still have to actually pay and go through that whole rigmarole, get the time off of work.

Lauren:

So I look at the your life of possibility is you have to think about what you want. That's what these health maps that we do, that's what they encompass. A vacation doesn't just happen. And what we do with our life, though, is we go, we'll see. I knew it wasn't going to happen because it didn't. And then we ask people did you do all the things you needed to do to make it an actual reality? Like nothing's just going to happen, or, if you let it, it's not going to be the best thing for your life because life's going to happen to you, right? So I think that's a really good way to think about. What does a health map do? What does living in possibility do? Well, it's like in a vacation, and, to be honest, a vacation is a moment in time. Your life is worth so much more thought and intention.

Dave:

Intention is the perfect word. I think using possibility also gets you out of bed, right? Everyone talks about motivation, and they need to be motivated to do this. And the other thing we're not, obviously, big subscribers. There are certain ways that you will never need motivation again, but one of them is having a goal that excites you. Yeah Right, it's very easy to put the work in if you really believe you're going to get the result right.

Lauren:

Yes, can I just jump in?

Dave:

I love it.

Lauren:

I love my vacation analogy. So here's the other thing that I want to share. A lot of times people say and it's a world of probability of, well, you know, we just don't take big vacations like that to Costa Rica and I say this all the time Like I'm from a super small town in British Columbia. My mom and dad had kids pretty much when they were teenagers and you know it was. It would be easy to say, well, people like us in a small town don't go to the Olympics, don't go to um, what a name, whatever you want. It's easy to pigeon hole yourself to say, well, just because where I'm from doesn't lead. Well, I wouldn't be where I am if I had that thought process right.

Lauren:

But speaking of that, you can get, everyone can get creative in creating a life that you love. If you think of the vacation, if you know, even if it's two years away, if you know you have this vacation planned and it is a luxury vacation and you're like man, we need to figure out how to make the money to get there. You can start planning things like garage sales and I'm I'm being dead serious Like there are ways, people, I think what people do, or I'll say this it's and I've done this myself it's very easy to look and go. Well, how can I dream that big and have this big life of possibility? It seems so far away. Well, there are things that are more in our control that we're able to do like, hey, if you know it's gonna be, however long away, you can start putting ten bucks, whatever, twenty bucks a week, and all of a sudden you will start chipping away and making it a reality. But there was planning involved. You were making it happen. It didn't just fall in your lap.

Dave:

You're planning. I think the planning the biggest thing, though, is that it starts with the place. Yeah, you have to be able to design its life by design, right? You can make any anything happen, and we truly believe that you have to be able to dream it and see it first right, and I think that's the biggest thing.

Lauren:

Sorry, I went off on tangent there, okay you're so good at tangents, thanks.

Dave:

We have one Final piece, the fifth. People, that's a quick review, though. Number one get honest and acknowledge where you're at, acknowledge your loss. Make it real. Number two zoom out. Don't hyper focus, don't get caught in those thought loops. There are other good things around, you just have to zoom out and see them. Then, once you zoom out, you can ask the questions. What are the questions? What can I learn and how can this work for me? Yeah, not to me. Number four refocus. We just talked about it. Possibility versus probability, right, work on a health map, all right. The final piece Ask for help. It's the hardest piece and once you do these in an order, you kind of work through them internally and then you can bring the internal, external Yep when you ask for help.

Dave:

Yeah, how long did it take you to ask for help? Let's just be real.

Lauren:

In my Olympic my.

Dave:

Any of these big losses the Olympics, or your business, yeah, or your depression.

Lauren:

Well, put it this way, I've gotten a lot as my as I've gotten older, as times gone on my time.

Dave:

You shrunk the window a big time For help.

Lauren:

Yeah, so I didn't ask for help a long time ago.

Dave:

I think with your in internal softball depression. Obviously that took years, but I think, learning through that, luckily you started to handle that before Kind of these other big things came up. Yeah, I think it's like a good example, honestly, is building an online business Like we knew a lot about what we were doing but we asked for help quickly, quickly really fast because it really is the fastest way to go.

Dave:

The other thing it's not just asking for help because you're never gonna survive. We talked about this as well with the moms, like communities, everything. You're not gonna survive as a lone wolf. That's the issue with moms right. And if you're suffering loss, it becomes well and this is mom right Suffer alone. This it's no one else's problem. I need to handle this. No one deserves to feel like I do.

Lauren:

Oh my gosh thing. Right. Remember when we were we went to we had a strong mom event in Nashville and I talked about being the lone wolf and I'd got nowhere. As a lone wolf, I wandered a lot and got nowhere and everyone was just like, yep, I mean, I think it's just something we we have. We need to feel like we've got this all by ourselves.

Dave:

Why? Why do you think that is?

Lauren:

I don't know. I wonder if it's. I don't know the answer.

Dave:

I'm better guesser.

Lauren:

I'm gonna speak for guessing that we we have a lot of people relying on us and we are supposed to have the answers. And I think when kids are younger we have a lot more answers. Then we do when they get older, or that we have a lot more answers with simple problems. We don't necessarily have a lot of answers with the complex problems that we have ourselves, but we're supposed to know the answer. Like you go to mom, dad, you go ask your mom I don't know. What am I supposed to do? How do I get the stain out of here? I don't know. Go ask your mom what do I put in to make the oatmeal not so dry? Go ask your mom I need a bandaid. Go ask your mom I. I think that's where it comes from. Of course, go ask your dad as well. You're gonna say that, but I think our natural instinct as caretakers is to Take care of and have the answer so that we can take care of everybody.

Dave:

I would offer a second piece to that.

Lauren:

Oh.

Dave:

I think social media and A lot of the, the images that we all see, and there's it's in one way or another. It's been going on forever. I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure, our parents have some reason, you know my grandparents.

Dave:

Yeah, when my grandparents were listening to the radio in Orson Welles, there was some reason why they felt shitty about their life, right. I think now it's on. You know it, someone poured jet fuel on this whole issue, where you see the Pinterest mom and you see so this woman has it all together and these parents look perfect, and then you learn the real story. It's very interesting, like we're friends with a coach of coaches, and just to hear how there are a lot of coaches who do not have it together and it's all images, right, and so I think, just being honest, I'm like even hearing you talk about, you know, the things that haven't worked out, I think helps, but we need to detach from that and realize it's not all perfect no one's perfect and then we're gonna move faster towards goals if we ask yeah, faster together and there's two parts right that together the pack right there's.

Dave:

There's two parts it's being in a pack and having a community, because then you, you don't feel alone. It makes this whole thing it's interesting. It's almost a cycle, right. So we've worked through, you know, being honest, zooming out, asking the right questions, refocusing and then Asking for help. When you ask for help, all of a sudden it's easier to go back to step one and repeat the cycle. It's very easy to be honest and open when you're in a community of people that are also honest and open. Right Environment is everything.

Lauren:

Yeah, environments I've well, you're probably hear me say this on every single episode, but it really is the invisible hand that shapes all of us. We don't realize it, but it does, and Environment could be that one person that you need to talk to about it and your coach or, you know, mentor, whoever could be the group of people that you talk to. But surrounding yourself with people who Generally genuinely want you to win and genuinely want to help you and genuinely have no judgment, is Huge and those people.

Dave:

The reality is that those people aren't always your friends.

Lauren:

No, yeah, a lot of times it's not. A lot of times it's not. One of our moms actually in our program, stated it perfectly. She said hey, if you know One of the reasons she loves our community so much and it is online and sometimes people will be like you know it's online and but sometimes you're, you're in person, peeps, they don't know how to help in the way you need help. Sometimes they really want to support us and sometimes it turns into an enabling because it's like, oh, it's okay. It's okay when you know you need, sometimes you need someone to call you on it or say like, hey, let's take this path, see if that helps. You know, to get you better, but it's it's. Sometimes it's friends and family, but a lot of times it's not.

Dave:

Yeah, imagine, I love the example like, say, you're sitting around and this is how environment can affect. You're sitting around, you're holding in this issue that you've had this loss and you're out to dinner with people. Right, and let's say you, they can, some friends, that some friends bring friends. You don't know everyone and you're just eating this thing. Right, you haven't told anybody and you don't think anyone talks. Everyone's perfect. We have some Pinterest moms. You think, if the dinner conversation shifts and one person is able to open up about a loss All the sudden, think about the weight that comes off of your shoulders immediately.

Lauren:

Everybody's shoulders.

Dave:

That's just trying to show that everything is great yeah you have one icebreaker and then, all of a sudden, the conversation shifts and everyone can be open and honest, yeah, and start to move forward. But unless you're around those people, right. Imagine if you're in the environment where the first person speaks and Then the next person shits on them, right and shuts it down. The other eight people at dinner aren't gonna say a word, right, and so being in the right environment is Incredibly important to put all of these steps into place.

Lauren:

Yeah, no, I agree, and sometimes we don't know what to ask, right, or we don't know who to ask, and I will share this. One of the things that Our Olympic coach and for the 2020 slash 21 Olympics said to us that will always stick with me is um, because you have to remember, when you're training for an Olympics, you have your team's goal right. You're you're one with your team, your goal oriented to this one thing, but there's a lot of us. Well, there's also a lot of people at play. When you have, you know, 15 girls on a team, they have parents who want to go out to dinner with you, or it's like hey, just meet me for a drink at this bar.

Lauren:

There was COVID in this particular case but a lot of people have opinions on how and what we could do as athletes. Like oh, you're sure you should be icing your arm. I've heard ice isn't good, right? Like? A lot of people have a lot of different opinions, and the one thing our coach said to us was hey, I know people are going to tell you a lot of different things. Don't stop and ask advice from someone who has never been where you're going, and I think that's a like it's. It's always stuck with me and I think it's important we we look for people who I'm like hey, they are killing life and loving their life and have amazing marriage. Like I want to know what they're doing. I love talking to older people who have kids that are older, because they've gone through what we are going through right now. Like I want to ask them for their opinions. So sometimes we don't know who to ask. So if you're ever curious on who to ask, just make sure it's someone who has been with you, been where you're going.

Dave:

Always, in every facet. I think that's such a good point. That may be your best point.

Lauren:

Oh, wow, thanks.

Dave:

I love. We do that with everything Like you follow in a back to social media right. Everyone has their Instagram. Don't click on people's and like people's things that aren't who you want to be or where you want to go.

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

Right Cause you get fed. You control your algorithm and it's not just social media, but I mean to say that you control your algorithm and life right, spend time with, and pay attention to, and give energy to people who are out in front Marriage relationships, business, health, all of it Right, and I think a good example will for us go. You go no.

Lauren:

I just wanted to add to that really quickly. One thing I learned is sometimes it's hard to ask for help because you don't know if someone is going to. You know, like, if you're the one that opens your mouth first and says, hey, I need help. If you're that person in the group of 10 and someone shits on you, like you, it's hard to say the words out loud because you don't know how it's going to be judged and you don't know if you're going to you know be judged. So the one thing that I also learned, which I think is super impactful, is you will never be judged by someone who has kind of been through the steps you're in and is on their way further down the path, the only people you will be judged by. If someone has a negative reaction to your question, it means they're not where you are yet.

Lauren:

And I've learned this in every area of life, Like as a softball player bringing a softball. If I were to go up and ask you know, Michelle Smith, who is my idol, love, right, hey, can you, you know, tell me what you think about this pitch? If she ridiculed me, there's no way she would, because she is here, right, she's done all the things she wants to help and people who have done the work that you're doing and have made it through that and are maybe on a different level. They will never judge you. Those are the people that truly want to help. So I wanted to say that because if you are asking someone and they are giving you negativity or they're making you feel bad, if you would never go to that person for, like you know, amazing advice, right, If they're below you, like, don't accept that criticism.

Dave:

Yeah, move on, move on. For sure I think that's the biggest and we, I think we've had to learn this over time. Hopefully someone can learn faster than we did, whether it was business or health. Like it drives me insane to see, because we are in the health space, right With um we do a ton of mindset and weight loss, but to see we work with moms, but to see it's the classic, the fitness influences, influencer, with no kids and nothing to worry about, telling mom how to manage her life and to wake up and do her morning routine.

Dave:

And like as a parent now, at this point in my life, like I've followed and gotten really into some of those people, right, influencers, whoever, thought leaders, whoever these people, whatever funny terms they want to attach, it took me forever to figure out they're not doing what I want to do. They might be really fit, they might be really good at business, but the path in the process they're using doesn't apply to me, because I have a family and it's really important to me and I have a relationship and a wife that I want to put time to. It's not just business for me and it's the same for health. Some guy telling me to wake up at 4am and take a nice bath, bro. I'm at volleyball with grace until 10 o'clock.

Dave:

Like we don't get to bed and so your methods, while great for the single bro or the fitness influencer mom, they don't work for us, and so having the strength and wherewithal to kind of identify that and move away in towards someone that I want to be like, like we have right now, we have business mentors with kids, which was huge for us and I think that kind of thing matters, so you can not make the mistakes that I made.

Lauren:

Yeah, a lot of times you look at a result oh, that person looks really fit. Well, again, if they don't have any concept of what your life is going to look like and they tell you to go to the gym for three hours a day and then spend another two hours doing ice baths and all the things like. I love ice baths, I think they're great, but they also have to fit into my life, because I would rather go and make sure I'm at my kids everything and fit in the little pieces that I can fit in. But that just goes along to don't ask someone for directions who's never been where you're going, which means they have to have similar challenges. Yeah, how did.

Dave:

How did they get there Right?

Lauren:

Yeah.

Dave:

I mean, that's everything we forget Because everyone's so results oriented. Sometimes they're only focused on the result, hyper focused. Right, yeah, I want this body. Well, what if you zoomed out back to step two and said I want this body in this life, in this life, and I want to feel a certain way. So you need to find the person with the health and the body that feels a certain way, that manages the relationship. Right, there are a lot of pieces to it. Yeah, we have to be mature enough to be able to look at.

Lauren:

Yeah, no, I love that All of these steps we use right Like the zoom, we zoom out a lot. We used to zoom in a ton and realize we got nowhere. And it's also one moment in time. One moment in time does not give you any context whatsoever, Yet we base so many decisions.

Dave:

All of these things are very habit based as well, right, like the fact that we have them written down and we can talk about them makes them easier for us to execute. But, like, if you don't talk about, you forget, right, it's very easy to get in these negative thought loops and hyper focused. It's really easy to forget possibility versus probability, right, when you get sucked into these moments or suffer a loss of any type. And so really, I mean go back and write these down, right, and really play around with them and, like we said, there might be one that really works, there might be three or four, but they do work, right, they can work for you it can work.

Dave:

Yeah, do you want to do a quick review? Sure, I feel like the pens are coming out right now Maybe a highlighter, I don't know.

Lauren:

All right, I'm a big highlighter.

Dave:

Are you?

Lauren:

Yeah, I love highlighting.

Dave:

What color?

Lauren:

Yellow, always yellow. And then I realized I shouldn't highlight so much, because then I just highlight the whole book For sure I want to know as a question, and then I'll cut to my five.

Dave:

Yeah, Highlighter colors they offer a few on the market. We've got the pink blue sometimes green, but the traditional fluorescent yellow Best for sure. Does anyone not grab the fluorescent yellow first?

Lauren:

I don't. I always grab the fluorescent yellow first. There are something, there's new highlighters now that apparently have even more colors, but I'm still just a fluorescent yellow.

Dave:

I feel like the majority of people go to the fluorescent yellow.

Lauren:

Yeah, I mean it is the most probably widely used and it's you see them the most, so you'd imagine they're the most yellows I can color too.

Dave:

I'm going to Google that. All right, let's cut to the steps.

Lauren:

All right, here we go.

Dave:

Number one get honest.

Lauren:

Yes, get honest with yourself first. So honesty comes in a couple phases. Get honest with yourself, just be dead honest. The best way that you can be honest, or the best way I've learned to be honest, is literally think of it from a neutral state, just factually that's. We actually use this in our thing Like what is a fact. Now, what do you think about it? Like, oh, I feel like, oh, I just I I look big or I suck at softball. That's actually not true at all. That has no truth to it. Like what factually happened. Well, factually, I trained for I made this Olympic team, I made this Olympic team, I trained for this. We made it. Like, factually, I threw a pitch that I shouldn't have thrown in that spot and it went over the left. Like factually. So just get neutral. That's the best way you can be honest with yourself.

Dave:

Get honest and start from a place of neutrality. Number two zoom out.

Lauren:

Yes. So when you're hyper focused in, when you are nitpicking a certain situation, I challenge everyone, I challenge you, if you're listening to really remove yourself. You know we actually did this through NLP like, think of your days, weeks, months on like a timeline and look at all the things that happen and try and search for things that actually went well. Try and look at the bigger picture. One thing we say to each other decent amount is this is a blip on the radar, right Like it's. We let one moment in our day mean and make a really bad day, bad week. I used to make it bad months and it's at the. It's one moment, it's one moment.

Lauren:

So zoom out, look at your life as almost a third party. That's what I do, I like I try and literally remove myself from my life. Another way to zoom out actually there's a name for it, I can't remember right now but also pretend your life is a friend. We are way kinder to friends If your friend came to you and said hey, here's what's been going on for the past month. To zoom out, two months, whatever. Just look at that person's life from that bird's eye view. You'll probably be a lot kinder and a lot more factual. You know, emotions won't run so high.

Dave:

Number three reframe Ask the right questions.

Lauren:

Yes, Ask yourself what is this doing for me? What am I learning what? What can I take from this so that, as I go on tomorrow and the next day and the next day, I can do something a little bit better?

Dave:

There is a lesson or something to learn and get better in every situation. You just have to ask the question and look for it. Number four possibility versus probability refocus.

Lauren:

Living in a life, if you can live in a life under, if you can understand that right now, just literally right now, is all you have. Everything in the future is a story, everything. We think that, because things never worked out in the past, we are painting our future with that past thought process. Imagine a kid trying to walk. They stand up and try and take a step a hundred times. If they thought, well, it didn't work for me that one time, they would never walk. We are, we are actually pretty conditioned to try again and try again, and try again. It is almost like a learned, a learned behavior to live out of. Like, well, it's probably not going to happen. So understand that your future is a story. Why not make it the best story you possibly can?

Dave:

Yeah, a good way to think about it is treat yourself like you would speak to your kid, right? You tell your kid they can do anything, be anything, anything can work for them. Use that on yourself. Number five, and this is the biggest one, probably kicks it all the way back to the beginning and can put this into the perfect cycle. Ask for help.

Lauren:

Yeah, one of the well, it's actually a book that we read. It's called who. Like it's the who, not the how. In any situation that you find yourself stuck, or even if you're not stuck and you just want to get better. That's where we are right now. Right Like we're. We don't feel like we're in a bad spot, but I still want to get better, whether it's relationship, whether it's ourselves, whether it's business, whether it's parenting, whatever it is. But if you're, you know, in a bad spot, you want to get better, or you're in a good spot, you still want to get better.

Lauren:

Ask yourself, okay, who can help me? Like that one question who can help me? You can narrow down the people who have been where you want to go, because they, you know they can help you. So ask yourself who can help me? I truly believe that everyone. I believe you can learn anything. I believe I can learn anything. Everyone listening. I believe you have the capacity to learn anything. That's the how and we get stuck into how am I going to do it? How am I going to do it? How am I going to do it? Just ask yourself who can help me. It's huge.

Dave:

Put yourself in the right environment.

Lauren:

Yeah, you have. Yeah, it's the invisible hand that shapes you.

Dave:

You love that.

Lauren:

You can start telling it up how many times I say it.

Dave:

No, it's interesting, Catch yourself. The other thing is start to be aware. Awareness is a huge piece of all these right. Be aware when you're starting to act like a lone wolf, when you catch yourself wanting to ask for help. But not right, Because the longer you go without asking, the harder it gets to ask.

Lauren:

Yeah, and one thing we've learned is sometimes we don't know who to ask. So then we ask someone who to ask. Hey, I don't know who to ask, do you know? You know, we'll go to a mentor of ours who is in a completely different space and we'll say, hey, I don't know. Do you know anyone who works in the insert relationship to whatever? Do you know who I could ask? Start asking people. It's if you don't know, then the only way you can find the answer is to just start like even if you're throwing darts, you may as well start asking. You never know if someone's like oh, actually I have, oh, I have a friend of mine who works in this amazing space. Oh great, can you connect me with that person?

Dave:

Bonus for finding people who have what you want 100% yeah. That's it. We're wrapping it up.

Lauren:

Wrapping it up today. If you found this helpful at all, please share. Share with moms, share with anyone you know that is going for a big goal, or who wants to go for a big goal, but won't they're scared right?

Dave:

All of us have fear, Like subscribe, Share all the stuff yeah, we would really really appreciate it. And if you, we do have moms that are ready to take action right. You can find a link in the show notes description to get in touch with us.

Lauren:

Quick, easy find out if we're a good fit for each other yeah, If you're looking for a who to help you with your life, nice yeah. If you want someone to help you get honest with yourself. We're good. We ask good questions. Help you zoom out, help you reframe, help you live in a world of possibility. You get to be around moms who are doing it every single day Can't tell you how many times moms are like, oh my gosh, my health map came true. It's pretty awesome. So if you need a who in your life in getting your shit together, there's a link below.

Dave:

We'll see you soon.